Donovan highlights

Landon Donovan's career highlights with the U.S. men's national soccer team:

• All-time leader in goals (57) and assists (58).

• All-time leader in U.S. World Cup games played (12) and goals (five).

• Second all-time in national-team games played (157).

• Scored or assisted on 12 of the 19 U.S. goals in the final round of round of qualifying for the 2010 World Cup.

• Scored stoppage-time goal to give U.S. a 1-0 win over Algeria at the 2010 World Cup, advancing team out of group stage of tournament.

Landon Donovan isn’t kicking goals in Brazil. He’s kicking back on his sofa. And he is the last man standing at Galaxy headquarters.

The Redlands native’s World Cup snub isn’t keeping him from poking fun at his image – and his exclusion from the U.S. men’s national soccer team.

The 32-year-old L.A. Galaxy star appears in a pair of ads making light of his situation – one for EA Sports’ World Cup 2014 video game, and one for the Galaxy , suggesting fans should “Skip Work, Watch the World Cup.” He helped create both spots.

The EA Sports ad shows Donovan rising in late morning, slipping into a USA robe and slippers, and settling in on his sofa to play the video game – and lead the U.S. to the World Cup title.

In the Galaxy ad, he’s the only person in the team’s office in Carson, overwhelmed by a barrage of phone calls before finally shouting in frustration, “Does anyone work around here?”

Brendan Hannan, the Galaxy’s senior director of communication and digital, said Donovan is “still a great ambassador for the game of soccer and the Los Angeles Galaxy. And he wanted to find a way to poke fun at his situation while also driving people to watch the U.S. men’s national team and the World Cup.”

Derek Burrill, an associate professor of media and cultural studies at UC Riverside – and a soccer player and fan – calls the advertising “good branding” for Donovan, who is serving as a commentator for ESPN during the World Cup, positioning him for his post-playing career.

“He’s communicating not only directly to the fans who know what happened and aren’t happy about it,” said Burrill, referring to the decision by U.S. head coach Jurgen Klinsmann to leave Donovan – the U.S. team’s all-time scoring leader – off the 23-man World Cup roster. “But he’s also showing that in general, the U.S. World Cup isn’t at the place it should be.”

Burrill thinks the ad connects for EA by playing off the way soccer is still viewed by many Americans, in the view of the sport’s supporters.

“We know what the position is in relationship to basketball and football and baseball,” Burrill said. “We’re sort of this European, effeminate sport in comparison. So any kind of wink, wink, nudge, nudge acknowledgment of that works in EA’s favor, because it includes us in the joke.”

Paul Marr, senior global communications manager for EA Sports, explained in an email message that the ad was created quickly – the concept was born on a Wednesday evening and shot two days later, after Donovan and his agent both embraced the idea. The conclusion, in which Donovan sings to himself, “I’m not going to Brazil,” was an ad-lib.

“Once we heard it, we knew we had to include it,” Marr wrote.

The Galaxy ad’s concept was a collaboration between Donovan and Hannan.

“It’s the sort of thing that Landon and I had talked about,” Hannan said. “And he’s got a great sense of humor about these things. So we pitched him, and he thought it was good, and we went from there.”

The two ads, Burrill said, suggest a rare feeling that Donovan is actually in charge of his own publicity and image.

“That’s a good publicist,” he said, “but that’s also an athlete with a good attitude and some kind of entertainment skills.”

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